Mumsnet is having a campaign to improve the care of women having miscarriages during and after the miscarriage occurs. One of my fellow MN Bloggers, @mmelindor, suggested that the members of the MN Bloggers Network blog about their own experiences or allow guest bloggers to use their blogs to spread the word.
And I paused and thought.
Because it is one thing I don’t think I have ever blogged about. My miscarriage.
You see, my medical notes do not ‘officially’ refer to it as a miscarriage as the first GP I saw, with the heaviest period and the most severe menstrual cramps of my life, dismissed the notion that it was anything more than a heavy period with severe cramps. Even though I have never bled that heavily before (or since) or hurt that badly. So badly I was doubled over in pain.
My GP wasn’t available when I made the appointment as she was on holiday so I saw a partner in her practice. This partner, who I usually like and is fantastic when he sees Adam, wouldn’t even listen to me explain that we had most definitely been trying to conceive and I had never hurt like that before and shouldn’t I have a scan or something? He deliberately waved his hand and dismissed it, handing me some sort of pain killer and giving me a sick note for work until I felt I could go back, once he heard my period had most definitely been due.
Once I got to see my GP, about a week later, and I told her about it she said, and I quote, “I think you’re right. It was a miscarriage.” Which made me feel a bit better but she still didn’t think I needed a scan or anything.
That happened about 2 years before we conceived Adam. Just a month or so after we started trying.
And sometimes I think about it. If that baby that wasn’t had been a baby that was, would we have two children now? Would I have been willing to do it again at 39 in a way I am not willing to do it again at 42?
And sometimes I still get angry at that first GP, for dismissing my concerns. For not listening.
And that’s nothing compared to what some women go through when they have a miscarriage. Put on wards, when the miscarriage needs medical intervention, with people who are having live babies next to them. Sent for scans at antenatal clinics and sitting next to hugely pregnant woman, as their own baby leaves them.
Receiving calls, weeks after the miscarriage, from the community midwife team, wondering why they had missed antenatal appointments as no one had informed them of the miscarriage.
And Mumsnet is trying to change this and other aspects of care for women who are losing their babies. Better staff training, better resources, better help.
And so the bloggers network is jumping on the bandwagon, getting the word out. We are Tweeting and Facebooking and yelling at the top of our internet lungs ‘Listen to us! The service is horrid! Help us!’
Help our sisters. Please.
That is terrible, Tee. You should have been sent for a scan to make sure that everything was ok.
Thanks for joining in the campaign. Lets make some noise!
Incredible how some of our caregivers dismiss our concerns and worries. It’s so important for them to listen to what we say.
Little Me has an excellent point. It is so often the sad truth that miscarrying women are not listened to. I’m so sorry this happened to you Tee.
I can’t believe your GP acted in this way. If you had gone on to have more miscarriages (thankfully you didn’t) the fact that one wasn’t recorded could have caused you to go through more unnecessary suffering. Unprofessional in my opinion.
xx
How sad not to even have had your loss properly recognised at first. It’s shocking really. I know what you mean about thinking about lost pregnancies and working out how old your child would be now. Maybe we shouldn’t do that, but we do.